Thursday, January 11, 2024

Champion Of The Press?

Pierre Poilievre is suggesting that Justin Trudeau is an enemy of the press. Max Fawcett writes:

Poilievre’s attempt to gaslight an entire country into believing he actually cares about things like journalistic integrity and free speech is about three bridges too far, given the obvious joy he has taken in smacking down organizations like The Canadian Press, the CBC, and other professional media outlets in the past. As freelance journalist Dale Smith noted, “This guy’s wannabe goons tried to have me removed from the press gallery for making a joke about how terrible one of his MP’s questions was, so I really don’t think he’s all that concerned about the free press.” Former Global News reporter Rachel Gilmore had a similar bone to pick. “You released an entire press release attacking me, a journalist, for asking you questions you didn’t like,” she tweeted.

Ironically, Poilievre’s own party had Menzies arrested on two separate occasions, once at a 2019 event when Andrew Scheer was leader and once when he tried to ask Melissa Lantsman — Poilievre’s current deputy leader — some loaded questions about her sexual orientation at a July 25, 2021 event. As Menzies said in his video of the incident, “What kind of political party has a reporter arrested and then steals their notebook and takes pictures of it? You think Justin Trudeau’s media party is bad? These are the guys who want to form the next government.”

And, indeed, the polls suggest that they will be the next government. They are raising money on that lie:

It should surprise exactly nobody that there’s already a fundraiser underway over at the Rebel. This is what they do. But it should be a little more alarming to see the Conservative Party of Canada doing essentially the same thing. “Freedom of the press is being buried by the Trudeau government and state-controlled media,” their email says. “Trudeau has divided the media into two camps: those he has bought off with bailouts and those he has censored and arrested. This is a dangerous trend.”

As I have suggested before, these days there is a bull market in lies.

Image: The Tyee

8 comments:

Graham said...

Your post is all true true Owen I keep wondering where is the pushback, the strong and forceful AND factual and true pushback.
That the other political parties are too decent, too nice is to all of our detriment. One needn’t be underhanded or nasty, you know, like a reform/conservative type, but we all need the truth to be out, we need the lies to be red marked, we need the hyperbolic nonsense to be called out for what it is.
If we want to keep our country being the free and decent place it always has been we and our political representatives are going to have to work as hard or harder than pp and his flying monkeys are working to steal it and misrepresent us.

Owen Gray said...

We're going to have to call Poilievre out, Graham. Lies succeed when we remain silent.

Northern PoV said...

None of this nonsense would work without the cooperation of a willfully ignorant population.

Just deserts indeed!

Owen Gray said...

We are where we are, PoV, because so many of us are ill-informed.

Toby said...

The big problem that I see is that a growing segment of the voting base is fixed on booting out the Liberals. They want Trudeau gone. I'm not sure many people even know or care who Pierre Poilievre is or what he stands for. One has to follow the news to know that. As with other elections, I don't think most people are paying attention.

Owen Gray said...

I think you're right, Toby. I also think we pay for our ignorance.

e.a.f. said...

PP was Harper's protege and we know how much Harper loved to communicate with the press. As I recall he wouldn't hold press conferences or answer questions. PP is going to be a whole lot worse and don't be surprised if we see a whole lot of censorship if he becomes P.M. He's from the same mold as trump

Owen Gray said...

Poilievre is using Trump's playbook, e.a.f.